This invention relates to caps. More specifically it relates to caps having a crown, a band and a visor.
There are many styles of caps. A common style is called a baseball cap. While this description is not exact in describing a cap configuration, in general it describes a cap having a fairly large visor and full crown.
Baseball caps are now high fashion. They became street fashion when rap artists adopted this sign of youth. The fashion crowd hastily added the cap to its uniform of white T shirts and sneaker.
According to a consultant to the headwear industry roughly 300 million baseball caps were made in the United States in 1990. An equal number were imported from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea.
Seventy percent of all hats sold in America are baseball caps, according to the Headwear Institute of America. Caps are having a record season (1991). The institute estimates that sales of all hats will reach $2.2 billion this year (1991) and increase of ten percent over last year.
Part of the baseball caps' appeal is that they are unisex and they are relatively inexpensive. Fifty percent of the caps sold are premiums or promotional in nature and advertise everything from seed and feed companies to fast food and amusement parks.
One company, New Ear Cap of Derby, N.Y. makes several million caps including the official cap of 23 of the 26 major league baseball teams.
The official cap has six pieces in the crown (each with an eyelet for ventilation) and a visor three inches long and seven and a half inches wide. Hollywood's version, as worn by Tom Cruise in "Top Gun" has a somewhat longer bill for dramatic purposes.
The design of the baseball cap has remained basically unchanged over the last three quarters of a century. The bill is slightly longer now than it was before World War II, and in the past twenty years the crown has been stiffened and raised a bit in front which reduces the skullcap effect.